This is a great movie about a backwoodsman named Adam who goes into town to find him a woman to cook and clean and pick up after him and six brothers. He scours the town, sizing up the women he finds, but most of them don't meet his approval. Either they're too weak, or too old, or already married, but he eventually comes across Millie, a woman who works at inn, and she's out back chopping wood. After taking a look at her apparent durability and tasting her cooking, he asks her to marry him... but nothing flowery here, he straight out asks her if she wants to come out with him to live on his farm. He then practically explains to her that he would have properly wooed her, if there had been enough time, but he just didn't have the time. Millie is kind of taken with Adam however and looks right past his rough frankness, thinking that he's quite taken with her. She's also not very happy with her life at the inn, having the feed and pick up after a small army everyday. When she's taken home however, she finds out that's exactly what she signed on for. She's upset at first, but she really takes the boys to her heart and starts preparing them to find girls of their own... and as they're all rough backwoodsmen who've never been in a lady's presence for longer than a second, she has to teach them some manners. The boy's make an impression on several girls in town, but things don't go as planned and they all end up back on the farm with only themselves for company. Now that they've discovered love though, they're all miserable, and Adam is worried he'll lose them all. He hatches a plot to kidnap their lovers, but when he carries it out and brings them unwillingly back home, Millie is so furious that she kicks the men out of the house for the winter (as the pass back to the village is of course snowed in). Adam is miffed at Millie's anger and decides to hide away in some forest cabin for the winter, leaving the boys to fetch and carry for the girls, without actually being able to interact with any of them. As spring comes around, the girls seem to have more than forgiven the boys, and Millie seems to be pregnant. Will the boys and girls be able to be together when the girl's fathers catch up with them? And will Adam ever value Millie as his brothers seem to value their ladies? Watch the find out!!!
I love this movie. The plot and the songs might sound a little but chauvinistic, and it is, but unlike many films of the time, this chauvinism is contested. In fact the way Adam acts toward Millie is almost satirically overplayed as we watch and listen to him size up women to be his wife/ maid, as we hear him convince his brothers that it is ok to kidnap the girls by telling them about the rape of the sabine women, etc. Don't get me wrong, this was a reality in the past. This exact situation actually happened with members of my own family... and they actually had six other siblings, though one was female. The way Seven Brides presents the 'man first' attitude is to have it noticeably present, and have Millie noticeably resist it. Also, the brothers are all sweetly infatuated with their sweethearts of choice, and At the end, Adam and Millie's situation also takes a turn toward the better nearing the end of the story. To top it all off, the songs are great, and it's a musical about freaking lumberjacks! How often do you come across that!? It's a combination of one of the most 'girly' interests- musicals, and one of the most masculine personalities- lumberjacks/ backwoodsmen. If you like musicals, love stories, pioneering times, comedies, barn yard brawls, or just good film, this is a definite must watch.
This is a musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein about a young girl who falls in love with and marries a carousel barker.
The story opens up with a man, we'll assume he's an angel... he's dead that's for sure, and he's polishing some stars. Then the boss calls him into the office and they get to talking about his life, about whether or not he had any regrets or any unfinished business back on earth. He then begins to flashback to when he met his wife. The dead man's name was Billy Bigelow, and he made his living barking for carousels... that is standing in front of a carousel and bringing in customers, and on one night a pretty girl comes to the carousel, and he's quite taken with her. The owner of the carousel, an older woman with a bit of a thing for Billy, sees Billy's attraction and bans the girl, Julie, and her friend from the carousel. After Billy stands up for Julie, the carousel owner fires him, and Julie then chooses to leave her job (which fires female workers if they don't make curfew) to be with Billy, and the two of them get married. The story kind of goes downhill from here. Billy knows nothing else but barking and can't seem to find any work... and doesn't try very hard to get it either. The couple live off of Julie's cousin, and neither of them seem to be overly happy about their situation, Billy because he has nothing to do all day (not because he's a leech), and Julie because Billy is miserable... and sometimes takes it out on her. Billy starts becoming more and more elusive and angry as the days go by, to the point where he even beats Julie one night out of frustration. An old acquaintance seeks Billy out and tries to convince him to steal some money with him, but Billy isn't persuaded, until he learns that Julie is pregnant. Things don't go as planned, obviously, and Billy ends up dead. After telling his otherworldly warden this story, he is given the option to go back down to earth, and have the chance to help out the wife and baby daughter he left there. Will he go back, and if he does, will he be able to do anything to help the troubled family he left with nothing?!?!
This isn't my favourite Rodgers and Hammerstein, not by a long shot. Billy is a weak- willed, immature, good for nothing, lowlife who manages to catch the eye of pretty girl. He then proceeds to treat her poorly and leech off of her family members, rather than try to provide for her himself... and said after that he didn't mind it either. He's just an undesirable kind of man, cast in a romance and almost idealized... but watching this I couldn't feel that it was a love story. The guy didn't even want to see his own daughter because he thought she was in trouble... that's a good guy right there, someone who runs away from responsibility and challenges, even after death. And Julie was no better. She made more excuses for him than anything else, even after he beat her, which is only mentioned, we aren't shown that scene. I guess that was acceptable for the times, stand by your man and all... but grow a backbone.
Aside from that, movie wasn't wholly bad. Actually it was pretty good. The songs were pretty good and the storyline was alright if you're able to overlook the main characters' failings. The ending is also pretty sweet, and has a nice, 'don't let where you come from hold you back from where you're going' sentiment. Not a keeper, but worth a watch.
This is a pretty good remake of the Snow White story. The story starts off with a couple running in the woods. There's something chasing them down, and it hits the woman, who is pregnant. The woman then tells her husband to save the child rather than her and to keep running. Then we're brought forward to see a young girl, who is Snow White (named Lilli). The father decides to remarry and chooses for his wife a lovely woman named Claudia, of what we later find out comes from questionable origins. Claudia is seemingly normal and nice to Lilli, even years after the wedding. It's actually Lilli who is wildly resistant to this new woman, feeling as though she's replacing her mother. There are subtle hints of Claudia noticing Lilli's youth, but nothing is acted upon. Claudia eventually gets pregnant and is very happy about the child, but due to complications during the birth, she lost both the child and the ability to bear any future children, and it is then that she starts acting crazy. Claudia hints at some point that her mother was a witch, or social outcast of some sort, and after losing the child, she starts consulting this mirror that was given to her by her mother. She then begins to hear her reflection say things to her, and it eventually suggests that she get rid of Lilli. From this point on the story is pretty typical, but the dwarves aren't all small people, but in fact discontented peasants who actually want to kill her at first. And in this version she may or may not end up with the 'prince'.
I liked this version. It had all of the main elements of the traditional Snow White story, but with a bit of a twist. It still had that old-time feel and was set in the past, all of the main players were present, but some of the more minor details were changed just enough to give the story a fresh feel. Sigourney Weaver played the 'evil queen', and I thought she did a pretty good job. Actually, I bring up this movie just to say her name out loud, it's an interesting one. I don't know if this is a keeper, but if you like the Snow White story, you will probably find this interesting.
This movie is about a man, Alfred Kralik, who works as a sales clerk in a boutique. One day a woman, Klara Novak, comes in asking for a job, and he tells her that there aren't any available positions. However, that very same day the owner of the store orders this cheap, impractical, musical cigar box, and Alfred said that no one would want to buy them. Klara successfully sells one of these cigar boxes and is hired. Klara and Alfred have not been getting along together at work, both thinking that the other is haughty or pretentious based on that first encounter.
One day, the boss decides that the window display of the store is old and ineffective, so decides that everyone will have to stay after work to change it. Unfortunately both Klara and Alfred need the night off. They've both been exchanging letters with strangers, strangers that seem to be their ideal partners, and they both happen to be meeting their pen pal that very night. Klara succeeds in getting the night off, but when Alfred asks his boss if he could leave early, he ends up getting fired! Feeling very down, he and his friend go to check out what his pen pal looks like, as he's thinking of marrying this girl. He didn't want to go in to meet her, now that he'd lost his job and had no way to support her. His friend looks in the window and tells him that the woman waiting for him looks like Klara, and it turns out that it is Klara. He goes in to talk to her and after a good deal of talking, and a little taunting on his part, she ends up insulting him, and he leaves her be.
Back at the shop, the boutique owner, Mr. Matsuchek, hired a private investigator to find out who his wife was sleeping with (he thought before that it was Alfred). He is about to kill himself when one of his delivery boys walks in and stops him. Mr. Matsuchek begins to recover and gives Alfred his job back, making him the manager of the store. Alfred begins getting close to Klara again, knowing that she was the one whose letters he fell in love with. Will he ever reveal himself to her? And will she still love him when she knows who her mystery pen pal is?!
This movie is the original 'You've Got Mail'. There was another movie along the same lines with Judy Garland called 'In the Good Old Summertime' if you're a fan of the storyline, which seems to be timeless. This movie is sweet, but practically so. The characters don't really go out of their way to be together. I don't know that I felt much of a connection between Stewart and Sullivan, the spent most of the film at odds and not that much time in love. I wouldn't say that it's one of the most romantic movies ever made, but it's a charming film sure to please!
This movie is about a family who lives in St. Louis. All is going well, more or less, for the members of this family. They are a family of 9. Five girls, one boy, a mother, father, grandfather, and a housekeeper Katie. Esther (Judy Garland) and her sister Rose have their minds on men, and they each have their own targets. Judy Garland is of course the star and her love life takes center-stage, but she does share the spotlight with Margret O'Brien, who plays the youngest daughter Tootie. She actually has one of my favourite scenes in this movie, the Halloween scene. All of the kids dress up, but unlike Halloween today, the kids would 'kill' people. They rang the doorbell, but instead of getting candy, they would yell 'I hate you So-And-So' and throw flour at them. It's a great scene.
Anyway, their world is turned upside down when their father tells them that his work is sending him to New York, permanently. No one takes the news that they will have to leave St. Louis well, they're down right resistant to the idea. Eventually they all sadly come to terms with it, but they're heart-broken. Will they really have to leave their beloved St. Louis? Right when the Worlds Fair is about to open? Even though they may have prospective beaus?!?!?
I enjoy this movie every time I watch it. It has great songs and is an overall feel-good film. It's mainly a romance, but it has a family dynamic that adds another level to the film, making it that much more endearing.
Katie is an 11-year-old girl living with her family in the States circa 1950. She lives with her mother, father, sister Lynn, and later, her brother Sammy. Her parents were born in Japan, and back in those days, visual minorities weren't as socially acceptable as they are today. Katie's parents have to work in chicken hatcheries, because in those days Japanese- Americans couldn't do much else in terms of employment. Her sister Lynn eventually shows signs of a strengthening sickness and the story deals with the family's poverty, and the struggles her sister's illness cause, both on an emotional and an economic level. The novel's title, kira-kira, means to sparkle in Japanese. Her very intelligent sister sometimes showed Katie how the world could be amazing, how certain things in life would have a kira-kira.
I wasn't really impressed with this story. It won a Newbery award so I was expecting something good, I didn't end up getting it. Katie was an average kid, with an average intelligence level, and average thoughts, and an average life... which made this story an average book for me. The author would constantly have Katie notice how intelligent other people around her were, how good other people were, or hint at how interesting other people's lives must be. As the author kept doing this throughout the novel, and didn't make Katie's life any more interesting, I began to wish she had told the story from a different perspective. This story could have had a lot to say and could have been very emotional. It takes place in a very interesting time, from the perspective of people who would have struggled at that time, and on top of that their family had a major tragedy. Even with all of this potential, it was still a struggle to keep picking the book up. The author didn't do a good job establishing a connection between the reader and the characters, and as a result I didn't care about what happened to any of them. I kind of wished their situation would keep getting worse, hoping that that would engage me.
At the end of the book Katie talks about the whole kira-kira philosophy of the book and I felt like the concept didn't have enough weight to be presented as though it was present throughout the entire book. The author didn't spend enough time developing that idea or tying it into the events in the book. There were a lot of depressing, unfortunate situations, but no sparkling outlook from Katie's perspective. Maybe in the eyes of another character this idea was more developed... but that really doesn't help the reader as we are only privy to Katie's thoughts.
The book wasn't bad by any means. I know my review is somewhat... completely bashing it, but it wasn't a bad book. It just wasn't what I associate with Newbery books, or great books in general. The story was an average kids book, and I'm sure some kids would enjoy reading it, but the book might not make it to anyone's favourites list any time soon.
This is the story of an unhappy couple who are called back to the husband's childhood home, a wealthy estate in the south, because his father is not expected to live much longer. We learn very quickly that the couple, Maggie and Brick, are not getting along and have in fact been fighting for some time. From their interactions we get the sense that Maggie has done something in the past that is so unspeakably despicable in the past that she is lucky to still be with him at all. She comes off as a potentially sensual woman, but acts only with contrite concern for her husband. She loves him dearly and seems to want nothing else save his love in return.
As if their private situation isn't enough, they must also deal with the other people in the house. Brick's brother and sister-in-law are vicious people who are only there for the family fortune, and Brick isn't exactly on speaking terms with his parents. Maggie must deal with a conniving sister-in-law, who is constantly reminding her that while she and her husband have managed to have many children, she and brick have none. Her mother-in-law also seems concerned that they are without child. What lie in Maggie and Brick's past that keep them at arm's length? And what will happen to that family fortune? Or the family it belongs to?!
This isn't my favourite Elizabeth Taylor movie, but it's pretty good. Maggie was an interesting character. Strong, but quietly so. She was independent, but desired dependency, and though I'm sure she could have played the same games as her sister-in-law, she seemed to exist on another level entirely. And on the subject of Brick, who has an issue with not only Maggie, but his father as well, he's just a drunken, immature, lay about. His father is somewhat forceful in his dealings with him, but Maggie is completely willing to meet him half way, and go further than that just to make up with him. Despite how she is with him, he just completely shuts her out, not even in company. When I did find out what was between them he seemed even more immature than his behaviour lead me to believe, and if I were Maggie I wouldn't be that forgiving. Overall it's a good movie though.
